Metro's Director of Schools Jesse Register talks to Lead Academy ninth-grader Joseph Ross during a visited to charter school Lead Academy on Nov. 12, 2010. / Shelley Mays / File / The Tennessean

Written by

Joey Garrison

The Tennessean

School board on charter school limits conversation...: Director of Metro Nashville Public Schools Dr. Jesse Register, School Board Chairwoman Cheryl Mayes, School Board member Will Pinkston and Metro Council member Steve Glover address the tone of charter school limits in community conversations.

A report released Wednesday by the Tennessee Charter School Center, the state’s primary charter lobbying and advocacy group, says 43 percent of public school seats in Metro are “low quality” and only one in seven is “high quality.” On the other hand, it claims more than one-third of charters in Nashville are high quality.

Among its five recommendations for the district: Bring in more high-quality charters to the most underserved communities.

Categories were based off Metro’s own Academic Performance Framework report, which used state-administered tests and other metrics to place its schools in one of five groups: excelling, achieving, satisfactory, review, or target. Charter backers have labeled the schools considered “review” or “target” as low quality.

The report, dubbed “Locating Quality: A Seat Analysis of Metro Nashville Public Schools,” comes one week after the Metro school board voted 7-1 to adopt a strategic plan that restricts the 2014 approval of publicly financed, privately operated charters to two types: proposals in areas near overcrowded schools, which includes only South Nashville, and operators willing to take over existing, chronically struggling schools.

Despite its timing, Greg Thompson, CEO of the charter school center, said his group initiated its study months ago, though the report references Metro’s plan several times. They agree that a strategic plan is needed; they just want different parameters.

“What we’re saying is, ‘Don’t limit it to the areas and models that they’re limiting it to,’ ” he said. “By doing this analysis, we’re showing many areas of the city that need a lot of help in terms of more higher-quality seats.

“We’re not trying to get in a tit for tat with the board,” he added.

The board’s plan has arrived as district officials blame an increase of charters for a projected $23 million budget shortfall next year. Officials have pointed to student population patterns in East and North Nashville, home to the majority of charters.

These areas have seen public school enrollment dwindle to below-capacity levels.

The newly adopted plan directs future charters away from these neighborhoods, but the report found these are the places that lack quality seats. The report called it “unacceptable” to limit charters in a way that would “leave thousands of students stuck in lower-performing seats with no high-quality options.”

The board’s Will Pinkston, who drafted the charter resolution approved by the board, said everyone agrees that more high-quality seats are needed, and that’s why the board adopted its strategy.

He said the charter conversion model has the chance to bring change faster than the way charters are currently deployed.

“If the Tennessee Charter School Center would spend less time cooking up half-baked analysis and more time helping educate state policymakers on the need for a more equitable funding system that accounts for charter growth, we might actually be able to advance student achievement with greater speed,” Pinkston said.

The charter school center’s other recommendations are: to tap charters to “turn around” persistently underperforming public schools, which Metro’s plan also outlines; to use charters to manage enrollment growth throughout the district; to close poorly performing charters; and to adopt a plan to track Nashville’s low-quality public school seats annually.